Leonard Binder

Professor Leonard Binder, an internationally known specialist on Middle East politics and Islamic political thought passed away on December 16, 2015. His professorship in the Political Science department was supported by the UCLA International Institute administration at UCLA. Professor Binder was a founding member and has served as President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA).

Professor Binder has been a member of both the Comparative Politics and the Middle East Studies committees of the Social Science Research Council. He has been Ford Foundation Foreign Area Fellow, and has held fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Jerusalem. He has served as department Chair at both the University of Chicago and UCLA.

Professor Binder has done field research in Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Pakistan. Professor Binder is the author of Religion and Politics in Pakistan (1961), Iran: Political Development in a Changing Society (1962), The Ideological Revolution in the Middle East (1964), In a Moment of Enthusiasm: Political Power and the second Stratum in Egypt (1978), and Islamic Liberalism (1988). He was a member of both the Islamic Studies and the Near East Studies Interdisciplinary Programs.